


Enlightenment

by KennaM



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, India, Introspection, Mid-Canon, World Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 07:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6229540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KennaM/pseuds/KennaM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She realizes it all in an instant. He’s staring at her like she could teach him more than all the books in the world, and suddenly she knows.</p><p>She sees it in the way he reads, wholly consumed by the page but resurfacing in an instant when she says his name. She sees it in the way he watches her read, practicing the foreign tongue in whispers, the book in his own hands forgotten. She sees it in the way he rides, beside her whenever the road is clear enough, falling in line when he has to. Always letting her choose which path to take, which city to visit next, and following. Always following.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enlightenment

She realizes it all in an instant.

He’s telling her about the book he just finished, something he’d picked up the moment the monsoon wind blew them into India, and the scene is so familiar she can’t help but be annoyed. That’s interesting, she says, patronizing, and he picks up on her tone but ignores it. He offers to read it to her, translating so she can understand, so she can tell him what she thinks.

She turns to glare and make a retort – something about knowing the language well enough by now, thank you – and stops when she sees the look in his eyes. His stare is always intense but there’s a clear sign of something else there. Hope. He wants her to say yes. Wants her to tell him everything she’s thinking. Wants her to want this as badly as he does.

His hood is down, a rare occurrence but for this humidity, and he looks strangely vulnerable to her. Exposed. He’s staring at her like she could teach him more than all the books in the world, and suddenly she knows.

She looks away, down at the map on the table in front of her, her fingers curling around the quill. Thanks, she says, but no. She’s still working out travel plans, and it’s getting late. She wants to go to bed before her headache gets any worse.

Maybe later, he says, and she doesn’t answer. Doesn’t look at him either.

But now that she’s noticed she can’t stop noticing. She sees it in the way he sits up at nights, waiting for her to go to bed before he’ll retire himself. She sees it the way he eats, quickly and simply, lingering at the table with her until she’s ready to leave. She sees it in the way he rides, beside her whenever the road is clear enough, falling in line when he has to. Always letting her choose which path to take, which city to visit next, and following. Always following. He’s just here to learn, he says.

She sees it in the way he reads, wholly consumed by the page but resurfacing in an instant when she says his name. She sees it in the way he watches her read, practicing the foreign tongue in whispers, the book in his own hands forgotten. She sees it in the way his gaze falls to her lips before dropping fully to the floor.

She sees it when they spar together, in the way he shows her his tricks without belittling her own skill. He wants to know as much of her blunt, straightforward Templar training as she wants to know of his subtle, delicate Assassin technique. He stands beside her to show the mechanism at his wrist, then watches carefully as she demonstrates the forms she’s relied on her whole life.

She sees it in the way he takes a step back when a fight starts on the city streets – behind her instead of in front of her, away from her blade arm. His knife is in the first man’s throat before her sword leaves its sheath. He doesn’t bother drawing his blade as she cuts down the second. His feet must itch to run but he waits to see which direction she’ll go.

She’s not one to throw around words like ‘love’ but he loves her. He loves her as loudly as he does anything. She’d known it for over a month, probably since he first suggested traveling east with her, but she hadn’t really _known_.

The thought of it terrifies her. Not because he’d held his blade to her throat on multiple occasions – she holds hers to his just as often when they spar. And not because she’d seen him kill. He’s stoic, but not once had he looked as uncaring as Robert had been at the sight of death.

It terrifies her because even the weeks holed up on a ship, crossing the stormy Arabian Sea with tight-lipped merchants, hadn’t tired her of his presence. She’d lain awake that first night in a strange bureau of a strange city and considered leaving, knowing he wouldn’t stop her now, and stayed. They’d argued about his trips to libraries and monasteries and scholar’s workshops, and she’d joked about forgetting him, heading to the next city on her own, and realized it was only a joke.

He loves her and it terrifies her because lesser a man would have – had – said that she owed him. But Altaïr hands her a book and a sword and waits eagerly to see what she will do with both.

She doesn’t say anything. They travel north now, camping in the soaked countryside when they leave the cities, killing to eat. The birds are new to her, and the not-deer, and the funny little mammals that watch them from the trees. He tells her the names for each. She scoffs when he has trouble pronouncing one, and practices them herself when the fire has died low at night. She’s grateful for the tent cloth she brought along, and he hides from the rain in the trees.

As the weeks drag into months he talks of Masyaf more and more. He hires every courier he can to send things back, books for his library or weapons and tools for the tradesmen. He’s been away too long, he says, but there’s so much more to see and to learn, and he makes no move to travel back. Always forwards, with Maria pointing the compass.

When she left, her goal was just that: to leave. She’d lost her old life and cut all ties to it, save one. She thought the distance would help her see more clearly, give her something to do to make it all worth it. In the east she could learn new ways, be somebody different. Find something of value.

Now that she’s here she doesn’t know what she’s looking for. The monsoon winds died weeks ago and he’s still following her lead, and she doesn’t even know where she’s going.

Maybe you should go back, she says one night, to Masyaf. He’s been teasing her about the marks all over their map and she thinks about how she doesn’t know where she’s going. She smirks and adds, sarcastically, that his people must mourn his absence, and glances toward him. His hood is up and his expression is concealed but she can see the corners of his mouth lift.

Perhaps I might, he says. Better to have a home than to wander the world aimlessly.

It’s a playful jab at her, she knows, but it’s laced with truth. And invitation. His ghost of a smile drops, and it’s too pointed not to be intentional. He wants to see how she will respond

So she doesn’t. It’s getting late, she says instead, and we still haven’t eaten. He doesn’t say a word as he unpacks their provisions. It’s refreshing when he accepts that a subject is dropped. She looks the map over again before marking the route to a monastery, one she’s heard has an extensive library, then folds it back up. They’ll arrive around noon tomorrow.

They converse in the local language as they ride, to practice. They’ve only been in this part of Asia for a couple months and her struggle with the language is understandable, but it frustrates her. The grammar rules are twisted and her mouth doesn’t seem designed for the vowels and consonants. Meanwhile the words fall off his lips so easily. When they arrive at the monastery he speaks for them, and she can only make out every other word.

He disappears into the library for two full days. She explores the grounds and is pleasantly surprised to discover that some of the monks are women. On even speaks Arabic, their only common tongue, and Maria studies in her own way. They discuss the country, politics, economics. They discuss nature, life, and a concept the monk describes as pure understanding. One-ness with the world. It sounds like peace, Maria says, and wonders what it would feel like.

When she finally sees him again it’s obvious he hasn’t slept and she forces him to take the offered lodgings. She can only hope that he’s eaten. These monks are luckily the kind with dried meat in their storerooms, and while she won’t ask what kind of meat it is she will barter the last of their gold for it. She presses it into the hands of the woman who has become her friend, and tells her it’s to return the kindness.

She doesn’t tell Altaïr. She’ll have to find another way to pay for his voyage back home.

Monsoon season has long ended and she can feel the temperature drop around her. The winds return, gradually, blowing in the opposite direction. When they leave the monastery she changes direction as well. He doesn’t comment on it, tells her instead about the stories and ideas he’d read, all the things he’d learned in that library. He wants to share it all with her. She interrupts to tell him about the monk she spoke with. They’d discussed philosophy together, out in the open air and sunshine, during meals and before bed. She’d learnt just as much without having to sacrifice her wellbeing.

He’s quiet when she says this. For some reason she thinks he might be mad, and wonders why. Then he turns in his saddle to look at her and his features are barely containing something, and it’s not anger. Tell me, he says. Everything. Everything she has seen and knows of the world while he was too distracted hiding, pretending to understand.

She can’t ignore it forever. She leads them back south to the coast, where he can find passage on a merchant ship returning with the trade winds, and knows she has to make a decision. The options are slowly dwindling down to just the two: pack him onto a boat and watch him sail away, possibly forever, or follow. The time for convincing him to stay has passed.

She still sees it, has never stopped seeing it, in the way he lets her lead. Listens to her guidance. Waits for her permission. He’s been waiting, and waiting, for months now, and he knows that she knows. He’s been saying it as loud as he could, even if the words never left his lips.

And in just a few weeks, just a few days, they’ll reach the shoreline, and whatever this was will be gone.

You would like Masyaf, he says one night, his words a surprise. They sleep at a hostel, their arrival in the city prolonged an extra day by careful planning.

Would I really, she asks. She tries to imagine it. A tall castle, filled to the brim with bookworm killers, a sprawling village aware and accepting. Her old enemies given face and name, understanding. A struggle for order and peace fought not through force but reason. Quiet.

Maybe not, he admits. But there are people there, who come from all over, and call that village their home. They are kind, and wise, and they care for each other, and they’d like you.

They sell their horses at the city gates and blend in to the crowd passing the checkpoint. He says nothing as she hands her reins over, doesn’t question her intention. It’s fortunate, as she doesn’t quite know herself. They have no schedule to keep, so they pick their way across the winding streets on their own, at a pace that won’t attract attention.

He stops suddenly in a quiet corner between two dismantled merchant stalls, the harbor in sight, and turns to her. Maria, he says, and something between them is breaking. The stone wall of his guarded demeanor and her feigned ignorance. She can see it in his eyes. Won’t you come with me?

He doesn’t ask it yet. She can see him trying to, trying to give voice to the feelings that have consumed him for so long, and which he is about to forever lose the chance to express.

Instead she reaches out a hand to stop him.

She’s never liked following, rules or advice or convention. She’d forged her own path, made her own way, left the confines of family and country. Altaïr had respected that, hadn’t asked her to change. He can’t even ask it now, when it’s the only way he sees not to lose her. Follow him, choose his life, or part now as friends, nothing more.

He spoke once, months ago, of the Way of Maria. A style of living uniquely her own, neither Assassin nor Templar. He’d seen it on Cyprus. She wouldn’t give in to expectations, or be limited by the choices presented.

Her hand on his shoulder stops him from speaking. Her hand on his cheek stops him from breathing. The hood feels like unbreachable territory so she slowly lifts it off, and he lets her. Watches her every movement like she might dissolve before his eyes. Like he doesn’t believe her, but he wants to, so bad.

She half expects to taste the unsaid words on his lips. They spill from him so freely she can feel them, from the tension in his shoulders to his hands hovering at her sides. His eyes are closed and she smiles into the kiss, then pulls away. His mouth follows hers before he can stop himself. When he opens his eyes, he looks stunned.

She fixes the hood back over his head as he struggles to find the words she’s stolen. It doesn’t make him look closed off any more.

Come, she says. She takes his hand, his uncommitted hand, and leads him with the wind. This way. Let us find these fine people of yours.

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for any historical inaccuracies - I did a lot of research but I am 0% qualified to write historical romance. This just needed to be written.


End file.
